Christmas Eve {part two}

When I think of Christmas Eve I think of warm and comfy new jammies, drinking hot cocoa and cuddling by the fire, setting out cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer, singing Christmas carols, and now I will also remember reading one very special book...

The Rolly Polly Snowman. My mom made this book when my sister and I were Kylie and Emily's age. She first read it to us while we sat on her lap 23 years ago. What a tender moment it was to see all of those sweet memories coming flooding back to my mom. (and yes, she cried :) love you mom).

Hugs for Sissy

And then we climbed back up on Mom's lap for a quick trip down memory lane. I think we fit a little better back then...

Mimi and all her girls.

Mommy and Daddy enjoying some Christmas Eve cuddles.

And like I mentioned, no Christmas Eve is complete without some caroling. I don't know who brought it up but somehow we ended the night with Mimi, Titi and Mommy performing the "12 days of Christmas" with it's accompanying dance (from our community theater days). The girls got a real kick out of that one!


We woke up the next morning to a Christmas tree overwhelmed with presents. Kylie and Emily were both spoiled with lots of clothes and toys from Mimi and Bapo and Titi. (And Mommy and Daddy were spoiled pretty good too :)

Merry Christmas!

Read more...

Christmas Eve in NH {part one}

We spent Christmas in New Hampshire this year. It is always so wonderful to be out there with my family and this trip was no different. I always love visiting with my mom and sister because they freak out about how cute my kids are just as much as I do :)

On Christmas Eve we went on a festive sleigh ride. It was freeeeeeezing cold, but we all got bundled up and had a good time. The girls loved all of the lit-up Christmas decorations along the trail. It was so fun seeing Emily's face light up (no pun intended) and hearing all of  Kylie's "ooooooohs."

I love my sister. I asked Titi to take a picture for us... so she posed... I meant take a picture for us of us.

The cute little, bundled -up Kirbys. Emily was trying to figure out what the heck was going on and why on earth we would bring her out into this freezing cold weather.

Kylie and her Titi. Oh, how she loves her Titi!

Daddy and Emmie Grace and Daddy's Hot Cocoa.

Ky was Titi's little buddy the whole night.

Mimi, Titi, and Kylie on the sleigh/wagon ride.

The end of the ride took us to a little house where Santa was waiting to greet us along with a couple of his reindeer. Here are Ky and Titi checking out the reindeer.

Posing with some friendly Christmas characters.

Mimi and Mommy. (That's weird that I'm the Mommy and she's the Mimi...)

And finally, before we headed home, we drove around to see some Christmas lights. There were some pretty crazy ones out there! Mike took all of these pictures because I was too woosy to get out of the car in the cold.

The bottom right was really cool but super creepy. Those are real deer in front of a taxidermy shop... He had reindeer, caribou and elk out there too... yikes

Read more...

Our Merry Little Christmas Morning

Mommy and Daddy wrote Santa a letter and asked him if he wouldn't mind dropping off the girls' gifts a few nights early since we were headed to Mimi's house for Christmas this year. The big guy gladly obliged and we were able to have our own little Christmas morning at home before we made the trip out the New Hampshire.

Here's the living room right after Santa left on our Christmas Eve (eve, eve).

It's funny, now that I'm a mommy, Christmas morning is so different. I don't really care what gifts I get [Mike, pay no attention to that last statement...] I get so excited to see the expressions and excitement on my children's faces. This year was especially fun because Kylie knew exactly how this whole "presents" thing worked and she knew all about Santa and she was so excited to help Emmie Grace with her presents too.

Ky did so well passing out the presents this year. No one really asked her to do it, I think she was just super excited and took it upon herself. She knew that the striped wrapping paper was Emily's, the polka-dots were Kylie's, the ornaments were Daddy's, and Mommy's were plain red.

She helped Emmie open all of her presents (and the rest of us too, for that matter). It was adorable because she actually helped and showed her the proper way to rip it open. 

This is the book that Kylie picked out just for her Sissy. They have both gotten alot of fun out of it.

One of Ky's favorites was her brand-new, real-life, kid-tough camera. These pictures that she's been taking are so fun. I am definitely going to have to do an entire post of just those images.

The aftermath...

When all was done, we hurried and packed our bags for our trip to New Hampshire (talk about last minute packing) and headed to the airport that afternoon. Notice I didn't say we cleaned up? Yeah, we picked up the wrapping paper, but our house pretty much looked like this for a whole week while we were gone... It was worth it though. Our girls had a great Christmas!

Read more...

Santa Baby

We took the girls to go see Santa for FHE this week. The whole week before, we were prepping Kylie, asking her, "What are you going to ask Santa to bring you for Christmas?" She would excitedly answer, "TOYS!" or "PRESENTS!" and occasionally she would be more specific and say "ANIMALS!" By the time the day came to go see the big guy in red, Kylie was all ready to go. She was going to sit on his lap, tell him what she wanted and I was going to get some great pictures that we would cherish forever. Well, we got there and she wanted nothing to do with him. She was perfectly content watching him from a distance, but sitting on his lap was out of the question. Emily, on the other hand, sat down like it was no big thing, happy as could be. We even tried telling Kylie, "See? Emmie Grace is on Santa's lap, don't you want to sit by her?" "No, I'm good." she answered. So instead of the perfect picture of Kylie and Emily on Santa's lap with smiles ear to ear, I got this one, with Santa banished to the back of the chair...

But then, when we thought all was lost, Santa brought out the big guns. Chocolate. Kylie started to like him a little bit more after that...

Okay, maybe alot more... She gave him a BIG hug when it was time to say bye.

I tried one more time, "Kylie, do you want to sit on Santa's lap so Mommy can get a picture?" "No, I'm good."

So we called it good, since I got the super cute picture of Ky hugging Santa and headed to the food court to moderately enjoy some overpriced pizza. When we were finished we decided to try one more time (since there was no line this time) and Kylie hopped right up there without any coaxing and started telling Santa all about the presents she wanted. (I think this time she knew there was candy in it for her because as soon as she was done, she hopped right down and went straight for Santa's basket of chocolates. That's my girl!)

Merry Christmas!

Read more...

Christmas With The Kirbys!

The Kirbys threw a Christmas party this year, and I have to say, it was pretty darn fun! We made lots of yummy treats, including: sugar cookies, muddies buddies, pound cake and cinnamon honey butter, Oreo pops [which Kylie called "magic wand cookies"] and white chocolate candy cane cheesecakes (which are a new family favorite).

The kids decorated rice crispy treat houses, sneaked lots of sugary treats, played, loaded up on more sugar, and played some more. {Mike had the genius idea, since we had 15+ kids under 3, to hire a couple babysitters to come supervise the kids activities so the adults could enjoy the party too. It was one of the best ideas ever}

And the parents played a very competitive game of (guys against gals) Christmas Pictionary.  There's no need to mention which team won... It's really not important...

We had so much fun and can't wait for the 2nd Annual Christmas With The Kirbys party next year!

Read more...

Ky Ky and Emmie Grace

Whenever I ask Kylie who her best friend is, without a pause she replies, "Emmie Grace." Kylie is such a sweet big sister and Emmie Grace looks up to her so much. I love watching them play together and can't wait to watch them grow up together. I love my babies!

I may be a little biased, but I think I have the prettiest little girls in the whole wide world!

Read more...

2010 Christmas Cards

Rather than posting our newest family pictures I figured I would just post our Christmas cards instead since they feature my favorite photos anyway. I love how simple, bright and warm they turned out.

front

inside
I did something really special with these two images in the girls' rooms. I'll share those soon :) 

back

Read more...

Emily's Birth Announcement

So, we sent out Emily's birth announcement a little late... I decided to included it with our Christmas cards this year. Sure, she's almost 6 months old now, but better late than never. I love the way they turned out. They were die-cut into this shape and I think it made them even more beautiful!

front

back

Read more...

Daddy's Girl

Daddy and Kylie have a very special bond. When's he's around, nothing else in the world matters. She loves him more than I could have ever imagined and he loves her even more than that.

 

Read more...